Chapter 3

The doctor awoke next morning firmly resolved to make his fortune.
Several times already he had come to the same determination without
following up the reality. At the outset of all his trials of some new
career the hopes of rapidly acquired riches kept up his efforts and
confidence, till the first obstacle, the first check, threw him into a
fresh path. Snug in bed between the warm sheets, he lay meditating. How
many medical men had become wealthy in quite a short time! All that was
needed was a little knowledge of the world; for in the course of his
studies he had learned to estimate the most famous physicians, and he
judged them all to be asses. He was certainly as good as they, if not
better. If by any means he could secure a practice among the wealth and
fashion of Havre, he could easily make a hundred thousand francs a year.
And he calculated with great exactitude what his certain profits must
be. He would go out in the morning to visit his patients; at the very
moderate average of ten a day, at twenty francs each, that would mount
up to seventy-two thousand francs a year at least, or even seventy-five
thousand; for ten patients was certainly below the mark. In the
afternoon he would be at home to, say, another ten patients, at ten
francs each--thirty-six thousand francs. Here, then, in round numbers
was an income of twenty thousand francs. Old patients, or friends whom
he would charge only ten francs for a visit, or see at home for
five, would perhaps make a slight reduction on this sum total, but
consultations with other physicians and various incidental fees would
make up for that.

Nothing could be easier than to achieve this by skilful advertising
remarks in the Figaro to the effect that the scientific faculty of Paris
had their eye on him, and were interested in the cures effected by the
modest young practitioner of Havre! And he would be richer than his
brother, richer and more famous; and satisfied with himself, for he
would owe his fortune solely to his own exertions; and liberal to his
old parents, who would be justly proud of his fame. He would not marry,
would not burden his life with a wife who would be in his way, but he
would choose his mistress from the most beautiful of his patients. He
felt so sure of success that he sprang out of bed as though to grasp it
on the spot, and he dressed to go and search through the town for rooms
to suit him.

Then, as he wandered about the streets, he reflected how slight are the
causes which determine our actions. Any time these three weeks he might
and ought to have come to this decision, which, beyond a doubt, the news
of his brother's inheritance had abruptly given rise to.

He stopped before every door where a placard proclaimed that